Feb. 15
BANGLADESH:
War Crimes Trial Of Kamaruzzaman ---- Full SC verdict likely this week
The full text of the Supreme Court judgment upholding the death penalty for war
criminal Muhammad Kamaruzzaman is likely to be released any day this week.
It will clear the way for the Jamaat assistant secretary general to seek a
review of his capital punishment by the apex court.
All the four SC judges, who had delivered the verdict on November 3 last year
by a majority decision, have recently completed writing their parts of the
judgment, an SC source said.
The parts of the judgment will be compiled into a full verdict and then the
judges will affix their signs on it for its release.
Talking to The Daily Star on Friday, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said
Kamaruzzaman has to file the review petition with the SC within 15 days after
the release of the full judgment.
The Appellate Division of the SC might take a few days for hearing and
disposing of the review petition, if filed by the convict, he added. The scope
for reviewing judgments in criminal cases is very little, observed the attorney
general.
If the SC does not review its judgment in the war crimes case, the convict can
seek presidential mercy.
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 had handed capital punishment to the key
organiser of the infamous Al-Badr Bahini for committing crimes against humanity
during the Liberation War in 1971.
The SC upheld the death penalty to the 62-year-old for the mass killing at
Sohagpur of Sherpur on July 25, 1971. All the 4 SC judges found him guilty of
the charge, but the death sentence was upheld by a majority decision.
The Al-Badr was responsible for abduction, torture and killing of freedom
fighters, intellectuals and pro-liberation people during the war.
A lawyer for Kamaruzzaman, Shishir Manir said they will meet their client at
Dhaka Central Jail for necessary instructions after receiving the full judgment
of the SC.
The decision on seeking presidential mercy will be taken if the review petition
is rejected by the SC, he added.
Justice SK Sinha, now the chief justice, headed the four-member SC bench.
The other members were Justice Md Abdul Wahhab Miah, Justice Hasan Foez
Siddique and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik.
The apex court commuted Kamaruzzaman's death sentence to life term imprisonment
for killing Golam Mostafa at Gridda Narayanpur village of Sherpur.
It also found the Jamaat-e-Islami leader guilty of 2 more charges relating to
killing and torture, but acquitted him of another charge of killing.
The SC has so far completed the trials of 2 war crimes accused, while the
trials of 7 others are pending with it.
(source: The Daily Star)
TURKEY:
Minister urges re-introduction of death sentence amid reactions to brutal
killing of young woman
Turkey's Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci posted a message urging for the
re-adoption of the death sentence via his Twitter account on Sunday night, in
the face of nation-wide protests against the brutal killing of 20-year-old
Ozgecan Aslan, who was stabbed and burned in Mersin on Thursday.
Zeybekci wrote, "I wish God's mercy upon our child Ozgecan Aslan and express my
condolences to her family. I hope God places our child in the most beautiful
place in heaven. We need to carefully discuss and reinstate the death penalty
for those murders such as that of Ozgecan Aslan."
The body of Aslan, who was studying psychology, was found near the village of
Camalan, about 40 kilometers from the Tarsus district of Mersin province in
southern Turkey. She was reportedly stabbed to death and her body was then
burned.
The suspect, a 26-year-old minibus driver, was captured in Mersin in a joint
operation of the police and gendarmerie forces late on Friday. 2 other
suspects, the driver's father N.A., 50, and another man identified as F.G., 20,
were detained on Friday in connection with the murder.
The incident has stirred demonstrations all over the country.
(source: Sunday's Zaman)
INDONESIA:
Ban Ki-moon makes plea to Indonesia over executions ---- UN 'opposes death
penalty in all circumstances', says secretary general, while Tony Abbott says
Indonesia should heed Australia???s appeals for clemency
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has joined calls for Indonesia to cancel
the execution of 9 people, including the Australian citizens Andrew Chan and
Myuran Sukumaran, for drug crimes.
The intervention came as Tony Abbott said "millions of Australians" were
alarmed by the imminent fate of the pair. The prime minister called on
Indonesia to be "responsive" to Australia's pleas to spare them.
Diplomats from Australia and other countries with citizens on Indonesia's death
row have been summoned to a meeting in Jakarta on Monday to be told of official
procedures for the executions. They would not be told of the date at the
meeting, an Indonesian official said, but 72 hours' notice was under
discussion.
Ban spoke with the Indonesian foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, on Thursday "to
express his concern at the recent application of capital punishment in
Indonesia", said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
"The United Nations opposes the death penalty under all circumstances,"
Dujarric said. "The secretary general appeals to the Indonesian authorities
that the executions of the remaining prisoners on death row for drug-related
offences not be carried out."
Tony Abbott said on Saturday: "Millions of Australians are feeling very, very
upset about what may soon happen to 2 Australians in Indonesia.
"My plea even at this late stage is for Indonesia to be as responsive to us as
it expects other countries to be to them when they plead for the life of their
citizens."
Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 33, could be spending their last days in Kerobokan
jail, where they have been for 10 years after their attempt to smuggle heroin
out of Indonesia.
Authorities have given permission for them to be moved to the prison island
Nusakambangan, on a date to be determined, for execution.
Senior figures from all sides of politics in Australia have repeatedly urged
President Joko Widodo to spare the men.
Besides more than 55 ministerial and prime ministerial representations,
Australian officials and members of the business community are understood to
have made overtures to Indonesian contacts.
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said she had been flooded with letters
concerning the executions and there was strong support at vigils for the men.
Bishop has warned that Australian tourism to Bali - a crucial source of income
for the island - could be threatened if Indonesia goes ahead with the
executions.
"I think the Australian people will demonstrate their deep disapproval of this
action, including by making decisions about where they wish to holiday," she
told Fairfax radio on Friday.
"Executing these 2 young men will not solve the drug scourge in Indonesia."
Joko has given a defiant vow not to succumb to outside pressure.
Lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran are challenging the president's blanket denial
of clemency for all drug offenders sentenced to death.
The former Australian high court justice, Michael Kirby, said the heroin was
being smuggled out of Indonesia, not into Indonesia.
"The important thing in this case this was not Indonesian drug dealing, it was
Australian drug dealing, these were Australians who are getting on to an
Australian plane to bring them back to Australia with Indonesian drugs," he
said.
(source: The Guardian)
****************
Bali 9 death sentence judges 'asked for bribes' for a lighter sentence: new
claim
The 6 judges who handed down the death penalty to the Bali 9 pair on death row
offered to give them a lighter sentence in exchange for money, the men's
Indonesian legal team alleges.
The sensational allegation is contained in a letter sent by the legal team of
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to Indonesia's judicial committee, claiming
there had been a breach of ethics.
The letter says the judges received pressure from "certain parties" to hand out
the death penalty.
The lawyers, led by human rights advocate Todung Mulya Lubis, told the judicial
committee that all 6 judges who brought down the death sentence had breached
ethics.
The new claim follows the shock intervention of the Bali 9's former legal
counsel, Muhammad Rifan, last weekend, who said there had been an
"intervention" that could discredit him but provided no details.
In an extraordinary statement after visiting the men inside Kerobokan prison,
Mr Rifan said he was prepared to "take the heat" and provide the "never
revealed evidence" to Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's current lawyer, Mr
Mulya.
"It's something that implicates us, it could discredit me. But for them I will
take it. I told Myuran it's okay," Mr Rifan said cryptically. "It's 1 last
thing I can do for them."
Following his dramatic, if imprecise, comments, Mr Rifan left Indonesia to
travel to Mecca for a religious pilgrimage.
The lawyers, meanwhile, have also written to Indonesia's Attorney-General, H.M
Prasetyo, requesting a stay of execution for Chan and Sukumaran, who are due to
be executed this month.
They say their clients have an outstanding legal challenge in the
administrative court and there is still a chance for their clients to have
their sentence commuted.
The letter to the judicial committee is the 3rd appeal this year by the pair's
lawyers.
A bid for a 2nd judicial review foundered after it was found it contained no
new evidence.
A case lodged with the administrative court in Jakarta is pending, although Mr
Prasetyo has already requested that it be dismissed.
Mr Prasetyo's conduct has raised questions about the independence of
Indonesia's judiciary.
Chan and Sukumaran have been facing imminent execution for several weeks. On
Monday, Australian embassy officials will attend a meeting in Jakarta with the
Indonesian government to discuss the arrangements for the killing by firing
squad. .
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
AUSTRALIA:
Don't recall out our man in Jakarta; campaign to abolish death penalty
Australia's man in Jakarta needs to stay put, even should the firing squad
execute Bali 9 pair Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan. This has nothing to do
with maintaining a good relationship with Indonesia. Leaving the ambassador in
Jakarta will best serve Australia's interests, so that each and every time he
walks into an office in the city, he can remind Indonesians of Australia's
utter dismay.
Those 2 words, "relationship" and "interests", are chosen deliberately.
Australia has a relationship with Indonesia, which like any two neighbours,
goes through ups and downs. But Australia has its own consistent and overriding
interests in Indonesia, the welfare of citizens visiting the country first and
foremost.
Interests are usually served by improving the relationship. But sometimes,
standing up for interests means telling a neighbour they are plain wrong.
Does Australia have the right, given Indonesia is an independent nation
entitled to make its own laws? Undoubtedly. The lines drawn on a map to mark
one nation's sovereign jurisdiction as separate from another often prompts
moral confusion, a belief these boundaries are absolute.
But as University of Melbourne philosopher Tony Coady explains, there is a huge
difference between expressing a critical opinion and dropping bombs.
"Nothing should stand in the way of stating what you think about wrongdoing
anywhere," Coady tells me. "Ways of expressing criticism need to be carefully
weighed, so as not to show contempt or convey superiority. But people from
different cultures must be able to criticise and learn from each other on
fundamental issues or there will never be understanding or moral progress in
either culture."
This doesn't mean Australia has the right to send SAS troopers to break
Sukumaran and Chan out of prison. But respect for Indonesia's sovereignty does
not shield the country from all criticism - having Julie Bishop write an
opinion article in an Indonesian newspaper, for example, or finding sympathetic
Indonesians to press the case for mercy.
There is another good reason for Australia's ambassador to remain in Jakarta.
Uncomfortable though this might seem right now, the interest in the welfare of
Australian citizens in Indonesia goes beyond the individual cases of Sukumaran
and Chan. Much as their fate is most immediately desperate, there will be
always be other Australians in Indonesia who need help.
The Netherlands and Brazil chose to recall their top envoys in protest last
month after Indonesia put to death a citizen of each country. It is easy to
imagine the Abbott government will be under enormous pressure to follow suit,
should the worst come to pass for Sukumaran and Chan.
Indonesia has itself twice pulled its ambassador from Australia in the past
decade; in 2006 after 42 West Papuans were granted refugee protection, and 2013
when Edward Snowden's leaks gave a glimpse into Australia's usually secret spy
operations in the region.
Yet by contrast, Australia has never made a habit of withdrawing its ambassador
from other countries as a way of expressing diplomatic outrage. Foreign
diplomats have been righteously booted from Canberra over the years, but rarely
has Australia summoned its own back home.
Australia's representative to Fiji was recalled for "consultations" after the
country's various coups, and the Keating government, under public pressure,
pulled the ambassador out of Paris in 1995 when the French decided to test
nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.
But after the 2005 hanging of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, Australia's
representative stayed put. Even during the toxic spat with Malaysia following
the 1986 execution of Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers - which Bob Hawke branded
as "barbaric", much to the annoyance of Malaysia's prickly autocrat, Mahathir
Mohamad - Australia preserved diplomatic ties.
The indignation expressed by recalling an ambassador, while understandable, is
ultimately futile. It is gesture politics, nothing more. For what comes next?
Eventually, the diplomats always return.
Better to recognise that moments of trouble are precisely the time a country
most needs a representative in the foreign capital, to put forcibly a point of
view. That is why Australia's ambassador is still in Indonesia, part of what
the government assures is an extensive, behind-the-scenes campaign to spare the
lives of Sukumaran and Chan.
Tony Abbott has admitted he is not optimistic. Indonesia's elite opinion has a
discernible lack of sympathy about the death penalty, believing the rhetoric
that a message needs to be sent to tackle scourge of drugs. President Joko
Widodo is sounding ever more shrill in his nationalist pronouncements, not only
about executing convicted drug smugglers, but is muscling up over fishermen
from neighbouring Papua New Guinea.
Complicating Australia's pitch was the foolish opinion poll broadcast by ABC
Triple J, a survey that better resembled a morbid computer game where players
responded by SMS on their mobile phone to an abstract question about executing
Australian drug smugglers in another country. Indonesia has seized on the
results, believing Canberra will not be under much public pressure should the
executions go ahead.
But opposition to the death penalty is one of those issues where leaders have
usually been ahead of the majority. Attempting to persuade the Indonesian
public that capital punishment is wrong is another job for Australia's
ambassador in Jakarta.
A good portion of Australia's aid budget should now be directed to an all-out,
well-funded international campaign against the death penalty. This should be
directed to Indonesia, but not solely. Australia's ambassador in Washington
should tell the US government capital punishment is cruel and unjustified. So
should Australia's envoys to Beijing, Riyadh, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpur, and any
other country where the death penalty is imposed.
The job for diplomats is give Australia a voice in the world. Australia's
interest will not be served by silence.
(source: Commentary, Daniel Flitton--Brisbane Times)
IRAN----executions
2 Baloch prisoners hanged
2 prisoners were hanged in the main prison in the southeastern city on
Saturday, according to reports received from Iran.
The 2 Balochi men, identified as Hamed Kahrazhi, 28 and Mobasher
Mir-Balochzehi, had spent 4 years in prison.
They had been sentenced to death for 'Moharebe' or enmity with God.
Meanwhile a group of 6 prisoners held in the main prison in the northeastern
city of Uromiyeh were transferred on Saturday to solitary confinement to await
their execution.
The 6, whose execution is expected to be carried out on Monday, were arrested
on drug related charges.
Another group of 3 prisoners, including a women, held in Shahab prison in the
city of Kerman, have also been sentenced to death for drug related offences.
They were transferred to isolation on Saturday to await their execution.
More than 1,200 prisoners have been executed in Iran since Hassan Rouhani
became president in July 2013.
******
British author Rushdie's death sentence stands, Iranian cleric says
The death sentence issued in 1989 by Khomeini against British author Salman
Rushdie remains in force and only Ali Khamenei, the regime's Supreme Leader can
rescind it, a senior cleric has declared.
Mohsen Gharavian said: "Salman Rushdie is a mercenary of the world arrogance
... Years has passed since Khomeini made the ruling but the decree continues to
remain live and valid and no one except the person in the position of Velayat-e
faqih can rescind it."
The death verdict against Salman Rushdie was issued by the Iranian regime's
founder, Khomeini, for writing a novel.
Cleric Mohsen Gharavian made the remarks in the city of Qum on the anniversary
of the death verdict, state-run news agency ISNA reported.
In December 1990, 2 days after Rushdie renounced his novel, Ali Khamenei, the
then and current Supreme Leader of the regime issued a statement describing
Rushdie as an apostate.
Ali Khamenei said that Khomeini ruled before his death that the edict against
Rushdie would remain in place even if the author repented and that Khomeini's
order therefore still stands.
(source for both: NCR-Iran)
*********************
Execution of Juvenile Offender is Imminent
The family of a juvenile offender on death row has been informed that he will
be executed on February 19, 2015. Saman Naseem, 20, was 17 years old when he
was arrested and later put on trial on charges of moharebeh (enmity with God)
for membership in the PJAK (Party for Free Life of Kurdistan), an armed Kurdish
opposition group.
A member of Naseem's family told the International Campaign for Human Rights in
Iran that Naseem's lawyer told the family they should visit him for the last
time before his execution. In the face of his imminent execution, the family is
reaching out to international human rights organizations to appeal for his
life.
Following a July 17, 2011 armed confrontation with PJAK forces on the Sardasht
border region in Kurdistan, IRGC forces arrested the 17-year-old Marivan
resident Saman Naseem (born September 1994). Naseem was kept inside the IRGC
Intelligence Unit's solitary cells in Orumiyeh for 2 months, where he was
interrogated and tortured. He was later transferred to Mahabad Prison in West
Azerbaijan Province.
After the Mahabad Revolutionary Court sentenced Naseem to death on charges of
moharebeh, his sentence was upheld by the West Azerbaijan Province Appeals
Court, and confirmed by Branch 32 of the Supreme Court in December 2013.
Saman Naseem's family member told the Campaign that Naseem was severely
tortured during his interrogations. "When his family went to visit him in
prison for the 1st time, they observed that his finger and toe nails had been
pulled [out]. IRGC agents told Saman and his family that if they agreed to
provide confessions in front of a television camera, he would be released.
However, after Saman his mother and his brother provided the television
interviews and the program was aired and his court was convened, he was not
released," said the source. Naseem's family member emphasized that he was 17 at
the time of arrest, and that he should not have been sentenced to execution as
a juvenile.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
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